The famous gardens of Lumbini are the birth-site of Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, who was born here in 623 B.C.; this site soon became a major place of pilgrimage. The Indian emperor Ashoka was among these pilgrims, and he is responsible for erecting one of his commemorative pillars there. The site is currently being made into a Buddhist pilgrimage centre, where the central feature are the archaeological remains associated with the birth of the Lord Buddha. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here.

Lumbini (Sanskrit: लुम्बिनी, "the lovely") is a Buddhist pilgrimage site located in Rupandehi District, Lumbini Zone of Nepal. It the place where Mayadevi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who later became a Buddha (Gautama Buddha), and founded the religion of Buddhism. Gautama Buddha lived between approximately 563 BCE and 483 BCE. For Buddhists, this is one of the four main pilgrimage sites based around the life of Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Bodh Gaya, and Sarnath. Lumbini is located 25 km east of the municipality of Kapilavastu, the place where the Buddha grew up and lived up to the age of 29. Kapilvastu is the name of place as well as the neighbouring district. Lumbini has various Buddhist temples including the Mayadevi temple and many which are presently (2007) under construction. There is also the Puskarini pond and remains of Kapilvastu palace in Lumbini. There are other sites near Lumbini where, according to Buddhist tradition, previous Buddhas were born and achieved enlightenment and died. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. For 360 degree imaging of this site, click here.